<p>im only applying to one Ivy because there are really no other Ivies I have any interest in. I have absolutely no interest in HYP, I went to Brown and didn’t like it, and none of the others really have any appeal to me. I don’t want to apply to a school for the sake of it being an Ivy. I’m applying to Dartmouth because I liked the school and I liked the Pol. Sci. department. And I don’t really like the whole Ivy mentality either…</p>
<p>I didn’t think I had that many safeties. And I’m considering pulling two off the list…</p>
<p>It’s been a while, I have some updates, and I feel like getting more opinions. We’ll see if anyone responds.</p>
<p>GPA’s gonna go up to upper 3.5s, SATs this March were 710 CR (I was disappointed) 700 M (I’m ok with that) and 790 W 12 Essay (I was shocked). I’d be content, but I want to push my score up a little bit and I thought I could do much better on CR, so I’m gonna try to capitalise there.
I also spoke to coaches over the spring break and have found out that recruitment DIII is indeed within the realm of possibility.</p>
<p>I’ll be spending my summer writing my IB extended essay on an evaluation of the “reset” of US/Russian relations through the lens of Realist theory.</p>
<p>Folks from my school in the IB program have gotten in to really good Tier IA/IAA schools (Georgetown, Tufts, WashU, Amherst, W&M, Chicago, Swarthmore, Duke, others) with stats similar to mine, sometimes a bit worse, but they are very interesting people. I think I can make myself qualify under that.</p>
<p>I’ve got some really good ideas for essays. I;m not sure whether or not it’s a good idea to share.</p>
<p>Schools narrowed down a bit:</p>
<p>Tufts* (I’d say it’s comfortably number 1, but I’m not comfortable applying ED because a) it would disqualify me from some EA and b) I really liked some of the other schools out there)
Bowdoin*
Macalester*
Carleton*
William and Mary
Carnegie Mellon Social Sciences*
Georgetown
University of Maryland College Park
Claremont McKenna*
University of Chicago*
University of Rochester* (only new addition)</p>
<p>Our admissions department is pretty holistic. In 2006, they started claiming that the newly admitted class, 2010, was about as book smart as Tufts actually wanted- past the admissions statistics of 2010, they were no longer seeking dramatic increases in the average GPA and SAT of admitted classes. Instead, they wanted students that fit with the schools’ educational and civic philosophy. At that point, new Dean of Students Robert Sternberg (past president of the American Psychological Association) had some new admissions materials created that are meant to measure qualitative factors like creativity, passion, sense of responsibility, etc. These generally take the form of strange, open-ended essay prompts, but also include things like “Here’s a blank sheet of paper- create something. We don’t care what” and “Write an extremely short play”. Sternberg did some research while he was at Yale about how to turn responses like that into useful data about someone’s personality, and we use it.</p>
<p>So, I can’t really chance you for Tufts without knowing you. But I can tell you that to increase your chances of getting in, you should emphasize passionate though pragmatic idealism about improving the world, with special emphasis on either local communities, third-world countries, or (even better) small communities in third-world countries. Try to exude creativity, a love of learning, and the desire to make a difference in the world.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the process I described above seems to have been horrifically misinterpreted by ambitious high school students as an attempt to artificially lower our acceptance percentage and raise our yield by rejecting kids with stellar GPA and SAT scores who would probably go to more prestigious schools. By surfing around this site, I heard this idea, and the corresponding term “Tufts Syndrome” for when other schools do it, for the first time.
Sorry, all ye 4.0, 2400, statistics-driven high school students. You got rejected because we didn’t like your personality, not because we figured you would go somewhere else. Maybe if you had spent less time in books and more time trying to interact with the real world, you would have gotten in.</p>
<p>that’s exactly what i’ve been hearing. and oddly enough, that’s exactly what i want to hear!</p>
<p>This is an excerpt from something i wrote in reflection after my last visit there.
How do you think they’d fancy this?</p>
<p>So what do I want from a college education? I want to have the knowledge and resources and wisdom to transform myself from one of the naysayers to one of the people who are part of the solution: one of the people who does not just call for the obvious, gut-reaction, immediate response like the type we see so much of today in today’s political activism and youth movements, but someone who has the wisdom, resources, and the ability to make the changes our world needs. I don’t want to come out of college and become Bono, calling out to the world for action, money, and will while not having enough of an idea how to utilise them. I want to come out of college and be able to truly understand the world’s problems, understand the consequences of our efforts to resolve them, and couple my wisdom and reason with the passion that exists in the world to make it a better place.</p>
<p>IB HL Biology (Double Period, will take AP)
IB HL Euro History B (will take AP)
IB HL English B (will take AP Eng. Comp, taken Lit)
AP Statistics (will take AP and IB Math Studies SL)
TOK/EE II, then Comp. Religions
IB Philosophy (not taking any exam, just looked fun)</p>
<p>Oh, and my hopeful/likely grades this semester</p>
<p>AP Calc AB: A (first time i’ve gotten an A in math since Algebra I)
IB Spanish 5 (taken AP Sp. Lang): A (first time i have ever gotten an A in this)
IB Economics (Taken Micro/Macro AP): A
IB Euro History A: A
Honours Physics: A
ToK/EE I: A
IB English A: B</p>
<p>What makes you say that’s a “for real hard” schedule? I have HL Bio, HL History of the Americas, HL English, SL Economics, Pre IB Physics, and soccer (REAL football) Is that considered a hard schedule?</p>
<p>Buuuuttttt, i dont think your chances are bad at any of the schools you listed. Something most people dont realize is how much your essays matter to the school</p>
<p>^yes, that is considered a really hard schedule. Especially given the rigour of instruction at our school (magnet programme, ranked one of the top IB programmes in the world), and especially with a fall sport (of which I think American football is more demanding than “rest of world” football, but that’s just my opinion :)).</p>
<p>I took the SATs and got a 2200 (710 CR, 700 M, 790 W. Would be satisfied, but i know i can do better than a 710 CR (i got 80 on PSATs and was consistently scoring higher on collegeboard practise tests)</p>